The week in preview
Tonight I plan to go to bed around 8:00. This is so I have the best chance of waking up at 4 AM to make it over to the Holiday Inn Express for the Morning Matinee. Apart from that, today is just a work day.
Tomorrow, as I said, I’ll be up well before dawn to go watch the Oscar nominees being announced. Then work all day and a pastoral council meeting in the evening. Then I’ll probably collapse into bed.
Wednesday is a regular work day made special by the fact that it will be my last work day until Monday. This will be the only evening of this week that I will be able to watch any television. I’ll try to squeeze in as much as possible, but it won’t be enough.
Thursday I need to go have a police officer sign off on a ticket I was issued back in November then go to court to settle everything and possible pay a fine. I’ll also use my time off this day to do laundry and pack for the weekend. In the evening, I’ll be going to a party at Surla’s with Betty, her husband, and another friend, Jamie. I’ve been promised socialites in pretty dresses, food, and booze. š
Friday (payday) I will have to be up even earlier! I’ll need to depart at 3 AM or somesuch to make it down to Irvine in time for my uncle’s funeral. I love long drives by myself; I get to listen to books or podcasts and no interuptions from chatty travel companions. After the service, time spent with family then spend the night at my cousin, Danny’s new place.
If prior plans to game on Saturday hold, I’ll have to leave to come home at around 8 AM, otherwise, I may stay a second night and drive home on Sunday.
Ok, there’s my game plan for the week. Any questions? Suggestions? Plot holes? (You KNOW how I hate those!)
Mo movies
**Warning ā the following will contain spoilers. Do not proceed unless you donāt care about ruining your own viewing experience!!**
This week, my intention was to see the following movies: The Tourist, Tangled, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Dawn Treader, and The Fighter. I was planning on one movie per night at $5 each.
Well, first night, I go to buy my ticket for The Tourist, a movie Iām given to understand isnāt very good, and Iām told that Sony Pictures doesnāt allow the theatre to do the $5 deal on its movies. So I opt to see Tangled instead. I liked this movie! The animation was excellent, the voice acting well done, the songs were pleasant, and wow, the textures on some objects were just incredible! When I was a young lad, there were half a dozen or so animated Disney movies (Snow White, Bambi, Cinderella, Dumbo, Lady & the Tramp, a couple of others) and being as how there were relatively few, each movie sort of stood out. Now, there are many, many, MANY animated Disney films and each individual movie seems now to just be part of a tapestry. So although I did like this movie quite well, I doubt that it will shine more brightly in my memory than any other Disney film. Recommendation: Go see it. Itās good. š
Because I ended up seeing my Tuesday movie on Monday, I wasnāt sure what I should do on Tuesday. See Narnia a day early? Substitute in another movie like Country Strong that was also on the nominee list? Ultimately I decided to see no movie this night, and instead go down to the church to see a guest speaker, Fr. Tony Ricard. More on this in a future post. Maybe.
Thus far I was 1 for 2, which is a really great batting average, but lousy pretty much everywhere else.
Ok. So then I hear from my friend, Betty, with whom I had been planning to see The Fighter, that sheād like to maybe see Inside Job on Thursday in lieu of or in addition to The Fighter. Iām down for a double feature so I decide to skip a movie on Wednesday and make it an early night so that Iām not tired on Thursday evening.
Thursday evening I met up with Betty after work and we went and got a quick bite to eat at Heroās Sports Lounge. I had their happy hour pizza, which is about 9ā in diameter. Filling! As weāre walking to the State Theatre to see Inside Job, Bettyās mom, Jan, decides to come see the film with us. Bonus! One more person participating in the challenge!!
Inside Job was a pretty good movie but just a little heavy handed for me. When I am being presented with information, whether in person, via the news, or a documentary, if that information is presented straight, without bias, I am perfectly comfortable drawing conclusions from that information. However, if the information is coming slanted, from a position, I feel it would be irresponsible to make up my mind until I hear one or more opposing viewpoints. To me, this is just part of critical thinking. So this film lays plenty of blame on all kinds of people and entities. And though they may be dead on accurate, some of the snarkiness in the presentation is off-putting and prevents me from just taking the film maker at his word. He clearly has an axe to grind and I will not just accept whole hog someone elseās point of view. The film maker points out over and over that this or that person declined to be interviewed for the movie. I think this is supposed to be an indictment of those absent voices, but I canāt blame them for saying no. There is zero upside for them; the best they can hope for is to not look too bad. Because the film makerās point of view is that they are bad and I would fully expect him to edit the footage in the most damaging way possible so as to reinforce his bias. Mind you, I have no complaint with this as long as his bias is disclosed.
Next up, we travelled a few blocks over to see The Fighter. We thought that this movie was scheduled to start at 9:40 but it turns out that it was really 9:00. Zoinks! As it happens, we were right on time. Jan skipped this second movie but Betty and I took our seats during the previews. The Fighter was also a good movie. (Iāve been rather fortunate in my movie selections over the past several weeks. All fair to good movies!) I think Mark Wahlberg did a good job and Christian Bale did a GREAT job! Amy Adams was pretty good too. Definitely a different type of character for her. The characters in this movie may have the most annoying family Iāve ever seen. So mind boggling to think that this was based on a true story. I mean it, this family is awful. And they donāt know theyāre awful. And that may be the worst kind of awful. At some points during the movie, I was so annoyed by some of the characters and circumstances that I felt like crap. By the end, I really came around to liking this movie. Just at the beginning of the credits, there is a 30 second clip of the real life brothers. This 30 seconds may just earn Christian Bale an Oscar. He nailed it.
So, final score: I saw 2 of the 4 movies I set out to see, but I did see a total of 3 movies. Ima go ahead and label this a successful week of movie-going. Word.
